Christmas Paper Wreath

In my effort to try to do more seasonal decorating I found this beautiful paper wreath cut file from MyScrapChick.com and new I had to do something with it.  Each year on Christmas Eve from as far back as I can remember my dad has read us "Twas the Night Before Christmas".  When I saw that's what was on the tags I purchased immediately.  Of course, as it goes with all my projects,  I started this two days before Christmas.  Needless to say it wasn't finished in time.



When I finally did decide to finish this I started by determining what color scheme I wanted for the wreath and if I had paper in stock that would meet my need.  I ultimately choose the traditional Christmas colors of red and green with an antiqued cream.  From here I perused my ever growing paper stash.  Now I am not to the point where I will be on a Hoarder's episode but its getting pretty bad.  I just can't help myself with the 40% off paper pack sales at my habit supplier, otherwise known as JoAnn Fabrics.

Off to cut the stars.  The paper I used was 6 x 6 so I could fit 4 total on my Silhouette Cameo Mat.
At this time I noticed after my first cut that the original file didn't "score" the fold lines to my liking.  It came through as individual boxes instead of an actual dashed line.  It is likely something I did when modifying the file and not how it was created but it bothered me enough to do something to it.

I modified the cut file to change the shape and cut settings in Silhouette Designer.  This was completely per my preference and to save time.  I didn't time it or anything but it seemed to take twice as long to cut the original file as opposed to the one I recreated.  Granted,my recreation wasn't exactly perfect and took about 30 to 45 minutes to modify the cut file.

Once that was done I cut the stars and assembled them per the provided instructions.  I also cut the decorative pieces the stars sat on.  I used a plain colored cardstock and was underwhelmed with them so decided to add some texture with my texture boutique.

I used the Darice snowflake embossing folder for half and the Darice embossing folder stripe purchased at JoAnn's.  This gave it just that little bit extra.
To create a vintage look on the tags I did some color blending with Memento Rich Cocoa ink.  I started with a cream color paper similar to Neenah Astroparche paper that was purchased at Michaels.  This was once again something I had from my stash.

Now that everything was cut it was time to assemble.  Here is where I strayed from the directions provided at MyScrapChick.com.  I felt the wreath base needed a little more stability to it so I cut 2 additional wreath circles from the cut file in chipboard.  I also added some organza I purchased at, you guessed it, Joann's to make the base a little prettier.  This was what I modeled mine after.

Image by MyScrapChick.com

As you can see there is a bit of ornamentation of the tulle/organza to give a faux wreath effect.  To recreate this I cut 10 pieces 12 x 6 and used a running stitch on my sewing machine to pull into a gather.  Think the ribbon behind the button on a state fair pin.  If I were to do this again I like would have spent the time to figure out my ruffling foot or something else to quicken the process but it worked.

Now to assemble all of it together.  This is where I ran into some spacing issues.  The file was not set up to have the extra bulk I created in it so it was a tight squeeze getting all the organza, decorative pieces and starts but I made it work.  I put down a little bit of hot glue and first did all the organza, then decorative pieces, then stars.  I did ultimately end up have to rip a couple and re-glue but all ended well.

At this moment I squealed with delight as this project was really starting to come together and was looking pretty good.  Then I realized I had to add the tags to the stars.  I choose to use some smaller decorative brads I had in my stash and they worked pretty well.

Except I had already glued the front part of the stars to the back of the stars.  Oops.  If I were to do it again I would have complete this step prior to finishing the stars but at this moment I didn't have that luxury.  Instead, I put a small amount of Tombow Mono Multiglue on the brad prior to putting in the center of the star and holding in place for a few seconds.  This seemed to work pretty well.

One more Christmas decoration that was completed only to be packed and stored away for next year.